Cool Voice AI that helps with navigation and driver assist

[diplomat33]

I think this is pretty cool. Mitsubishi is working on a system that combines the computer vision that is used in self-driving cars with natural language AI so it can speak to the driver and help them navigate and drive. It is called "scene aware interaction technology". It can give navigation directions based on landmarks like "turn left after the black building". Or it might say "follow the black car that is turning left" and if you say "I can't see the black car", it will look for another car and it might say "follow the grey car in the left lane". It can also give auditory warnings about other road users like "watch for the grey car that is merging in your lane".

At Last, a Self-Driving Car That Can Explain Itself

Mitsubishi’s Electric AI not only improves performance, it also fosters trust

spectrum.ieee.org

 

[rajbsn]

It is very interesting and will be useful for real environment aware guidance. But a right balance of info needs to be maintained and too much info will also distract the driver unless it is fully self driving.

 

[JohnB007]

Dunno, may end up confusing me even more!

If they could come up with some kind of (non-dizzy) virtual display that can color the road you are supposed to go including all turns on your windshield....

 

[Supcom]

It will be known as the back seat driver.

 

[OncomingStorm]

the first image this conjours for me is that episode of The Office, where Michael (i think) drives his car into a lake becasue the GPS told him to turn when it meant veer lol.

seriously tho, this seems problemtaic at best, you'd first have to agree on a set of objects to use for the "shared reality"... ask 10 people to give you directions based on object locations and you'll likely get 10 completely different sets of directions. couple that with the time issue... if the computer tells you to turn right at a building you can't recognize, its unlikely you'll be able to interact with the computer and get a second set of instructions that you could interpet fast enough to actually make your turn unless your stopped or going very slow. not to mention possible safety issues if your car is constantly telling you to look at things lol. the real problem is, with all our tech, we are still pretty terrible at human-machine communcation, we can do it but its too slow to be very practical using purely vocal ques (think about how problimatic it is to tell alexa/google anything you dont know the key phrase for lol).

its a really cool idea tho, if coupled with facial recignition or some other system to allow the computer to tell if you actually understood the direction it gave and possiblly adding in some kind of visual que... like a projected dot on your windsheild in your line of sight to the obejct its refering too, or better yet highlighting the object entirely in your view... it could make the navigation experience very sci-fi ish lol

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I love the premise behind this.

Navigation aids need a massive re-think.

For starters:

They need the ability to see the situation so it doesn't give impossible to follow instructions
They need to learn the nature of the driver like whether the driver is comfortable taking uncontrolled lefts at a busy intersection.
They need to be respectful where it doesn't take detours that violate "locals only, not a bypass" signage.
An EV navigation needs to be situationally aware with its instructions to make sure the user doesn't end up screwed
They need to be highly configurable
They need to be pretty descriptive when re-routing